FINALLY I seem to be getting over a truly nasty virus that attacks soul as well as body
This has been an extraordinarily unpleasant experience. I had a fairly normal cold for a few days starting last Friday and kept working through it as I always do while coughing and hacking away. Then on Monday, I started feeling this incredible and unremitting fatigue. It particularly attacked my hands and arms. I couldn’t lift my arms above my shoulders without feeling exhausted. And my arms and hands would get tired after two minutes of typing, keeping me my favorite thing to do with my clothes on, writing.
I’ve always had a lot of energy. When I was five years old my grandmother offered me a nickel if I could sit still in a big chair in the lobby of our hotel for five minutes. It was the longest five minutes of my life. Even when I’m not quite focused in the morning—I wake slowly—I always know that later in the day I’m going to have a burst of energy and feel like I can take on the whole world. Even when I’m tired at night—and some nights I just don’t get tired—I know that I’m going to have a burst of energy the next day.
When I’ve had colds or even a bad flu, my experience has been of just getting tired more easily and needing frequent rest and a nap or two. There have been times when I’ve slept and slept—and have enjoyed the pleasure of lingering in bed and resting. What makes this different is that while I’m sleeping a bit more than usual, I’m not especially sleepy. I’ve never had illness that left me awake and thinking hard about all that I want to do but unable to work because I was physically exhausted from the beginning to the end of the day. I’ve never spent days with little or no hope of my energy returning. And this weird fatigue in my arms and hands made doing anything—driving, taking food out of the refrigerator, turning the lock in my front door, opening a can of soda—feel like a difficult chore.
I’ve had illnesses in which I felt that the fire inside me was burning lower than usual or needed more tending than I’m accustomed to giving it. I’ve never had any illness that made me feel like the fire was out.
I thought that maybe I was having a side effect of a medicine I’ve been taking. But that doesn’t appear to be the case. And a colleague of mine has something similar. So it seems as if I’ve been bitten by some unusual virus.
Has anyone else had this recently? Anyone have these symptoms? Maybe I’ve been lucky never to experience this before. I sure hope this is not a harbinger of things to come. Is this what extreme old age feels like? If so, then I hope I die before I get old.
It finally seems to be lifting. I’m not quite there yet. Typing this short piece has tired me out. But I think I’m getting there and I’ve never been as grateful for the return of good health as I am right now.